


Life During Wartime

by minkhollow



Category: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Genre: Gen, POV Character of Color
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-11
Updated: 2009-04-11
Packaged: 2017-10-02 07:36:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minkhollow/pseuds/minkhollow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>America isn't the land of wonders she had hoped to see.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life During Wartime

**Author's Note:**

> My brain gave me this with a much larger fic in mind, but I doubt I'll need all of these details in the body of said, and so.  
> I am not Joss Whedon; I'm just borrowing out of love (and giving a _very_ bit character some backstory).

They're leaving, Amara's papa says, because Liberia isn't safe anymore. She's seen the signs of that, even though her parents try to keep her and her siblings from knowing about the worst of it. There's too much happening for that to completely work.

Her papa has family in America, and says they're going to stay there for a while, until they can get on their feet in the new country. Amara isn't sure what to think about it - Los Angeles sounds like a very different place - but she think it'll at least be more peaceful. America sounds safer, from everything she knows.

They get ready to leave, and make plans for what to do when they get to America - but only a week before they're set to leave, part of the dream shatters. Her mama takes her little brother to the market one afternoon, but comes back alone, pale and shaking.

"They took Jamie," she says. "The soldiers - I only turned my back for a second, I thought he would stay with me, they - I couldn't catch up."

Amara can only watch her parents fall apart. She asks, over the next week, what they know about the situation, but it isn't much; they don't have the time to really try to track Jamie down, and might get killed for doing so. And if they don't leave when they planned to, they might not have the chance.

When they get to America, Amara tells herself her brother is dead. It doesn't do as much to stop it from hurting as she thought it would.

***

She doesn't understand why white people think they're so wonderful. Especially not after riots overtake the city, the spring she turns thirteen, all because people get angry about race.

America isn't turning out to be the land of wonders Amara had been expecting. Maybe it shouldn't surprise her - but it does, and it disappoints her all at once. She wants it to be the place where everything is better. She wants it to be the place where anyone can have anything they want, where her oldest sister isn't written off by the world at large because she gets pregnant right out of high school and the boy who got her in that state has to own up, and do something other than get involved in what might as well be another civil war.

She wants it to give her her family back - and if it can't do that, well. Sometimes, she just wants to see it burn, and rebuild everything from scratch.

The problem with that much destruction is that it leaves you with nothing to use as a framework for what comes next. But considering how solidly people have screwed that up before, maybe it's what the world needs.

***

In high school, she finds out she's different.

That's not entirely true; she's been different since she was nine, being an immigrant girl from Africa. But that's the kind of different that leads people to bully her. She doesn't take it quietly, of course, but that only seems to encourage the worst of it.

Until the day her sophomore year when three of the football players corner her. She stands her ground, but knows they're liable to beat her to a pulp.

One of them throws a punch, and Amara sees it hit her left shoulder, but doesn't even feel it. The guy pulls back quickly, cursing and shaking out his hand; she notes, distantly, that his knuckles are bleeding. Another one tries the same thing, only harder. She has enough time to block it, and hears something crack.

That one drops to his knees, holding onto his arm and looking like he's doing his best not to cry in front of his friends - or, worse, a girl. The third one apparently decides to cut his losses, since he leaves without trying anything.

She steps over the guy on the floor, and glares at the first one when he looks like he might try to stop her. "Do you really want to break more than your skin?"

That holds him up long enough for her to get away. She makes a break for the girls' bathroom, hides in a stall, and cries her eyes out.

***

Once Amara's not completely terrified of what happened, she thinks it's pretty cool. She certainly would have preferred to find out about her apparent invulnerability in some way other than being attacked by jocks, but despite the unusual introduction, she can see where the trick might have its uses. One of her few friends, a quiet girl with a penchant for clothing design, sees a chance to make something that's both durable and comfortable - a real concern, once Amara realises how quickly she's wearing out some of her clothes.

She should be halfway through college, when the stories about blood diamonds start leaking, but she's not; her parents couldn't afford it, so instead, she's working in an appliance store. As soon as she hears about them, Amara knows two things: First, that it's time she put her ability to some use, and second, that her family _will_ see some sort of reimbursement for her brother's kidnapping. They likely won't see Jamie again, and wouldn't recognise any facet of him if they did, but she has no qualms at all about taking the piss out of a jeweler's store over the matter.

Perhaps all she'd ever needed was somewhere to direct all her bitterness.

***

The press wonders who she might be, after two heists; on the third, she names herself for that which she steals. She's approached by no less than three heroes looking for a sidekick (all of whom seem to think she's doing this for some selfless motive), as well as the Henchmen's Union, and she declines all offers; her work is largely personal. Though she doesn't claim any official affiliation, she much prefers the company on the darker side of Los Angeles, as there are far less awkward questions about why she does what she does.

Various governments start claiming that the problem of blood diamonds has been solved, but Amara doesn't believe that for a second. She might, if people had somehow managed to end every war in Africa, but there's no evidence of that happening any time soon.

Until it does, she'll carry on with her personal crusade.


End file.
